As I typed this, it was the Fourth of July and my kids were taking naps before the Red, White and Boom fireworks show in Salisbury that evening. (Well, they were in their room, and I didn’t hear any shouting, so good enough).

I was listening to the radio while driving somewhere that morning — and of course, it being Independence Day, they were reporting on the shocking phenomenon of people setting off fireworks.

Andrew Sharp(Photo: .)

They brought on some poor official and asked him what he thought. Surprise — he launched into the traditional lecture that any fireworks that fly, explode, fizzle, glow, release any smoke or have fuses that can ignite are against the law.

Or something like that; I paraphrase.

It got me thinking. I’m not a guy who stuffs my trunk full of fireworks anytime I drive through another state. I’m reasonably happy to let professionals set them off. They’re better, and I don’t have to pay for them.

Sure, I get it, some people get drunk and don’t read the instructions and set them off on their heads or throw them at each other or peer closely at them to see why they’re not going off, and every year, people are wheeled into the emergency room with fireworks burns, and sometimes people even die. The rules are for our own good.

Wait, is this our parents talking or the government? It's hard to tell sometimes.

People like to do dangerous things.

When I was a kid, we used to go to Pennsylvania every year for a family reunion. We cousins from Delaware, excited by these novel things called mountains, liked to take our bicycles to the top, and coast down, reaching cartoon roadrunner speeds by the time we got to the bottom. This was often on gravel roads, there were no guard rails, and we didn’t wear helmets.

It was pretty dangerous, and I’ll flip out if I ever catch my kids doing it.

We had a great time.

Adults have their own versions of this game. They hunt grizzly bears during blizzards in the Rockies, surf giant waves, ride motorcycles, go rock climbing or hang gliding, or get in their cars and try to merge onto an interstate highway. Sometimes they get badly hurt.

Another pastime people love is telling other people what’s good for them. And that’s where the authorities get a little carried away sometimes.

They ban all the obvious stuff like murder and fraud and unlicensed hair cutting, and eventually they run out of things to ban and turn their watchful eyes on fun things that people can get hurt doing, like blowing up consumer fireworks.

There’s no doubt it keeps us safer. You’ll have fewer people lose their fingers if you ban fireworks. You can prove it. It’s a statistics thing. And who’s not in favor of keeping fingers?

But there’s a cost to this safety — we give up some of the right to make our own decisions, along with the right to risk our fingers setting off explosives in our backyards once or twice a year.

I realize I’m grouching about small stuff. It’s not some kind of constitutional crisis; it’s just fireworks. But are we children, or adult citizens?

I’m not anti-government, nor of the opinion that all regulation is the overreach of some kind of nanny state. I’m glad pesticides have to be approved, and you’re not allowed to sell whiskey to 10-year-olds, and you have to prove your medicines don’t kill people or make them lose limbs, and you’re not allowed to drive drunk.

But once in a while, it wouldn’t hurt to stifle that seductive urge to try to force other people to be safe and responsible.

After all, what’s everyone trying to celebrate with those dangerous fireworks? Oh, that’s right — freedom.

Email Andrew Sharp at asharp@delmarvanow.com. Find him on Twitter @buckeye_201 and on Facebook @andrewsharp201.